Why should the police get a discount? They should have to buy their MRAPs through the auction systems the same way that someone running a logging company has to buy surplus LMTVs. I'm sympathetic to the cause of saving money but if the military won't auction something to a random US citizen I don't see why they should be auctioning that thing to a random US civilian police force. They can sell that stuff to other nations if they can't sell it domestically.
I don't particularly care what the standard is for disposing of unwanted military hardware is so long as it's not a double one. A civilian police force should get no special treatment above any other civilian entity.
> I don't particularly care what the standard is for disposing of unwanted military hardware is so long as it's not a double one. A civilian police force should get no special treatment above any other civilian entity.
Agreed, the NFA needs to go and every citizen should be able to purchase military surplus.
> I'm sympathetic to the cause of saving money but if the military won't auction something to a random US citizen I don't see why they should be auctioning that thing to a random US civilian police force.
I don't see why it's not clear there's a difference here, in terms of community interest, but whatever
> A civilian police force should have no special rights above any other civilian entity.
What a weird way of looking at the world. I've genuinely never heard this take. Police have power over you, if you break the law; that's the point, no?
Police power is not intrinsic. It is granted by the people through their elected government. In my state, every local authority has the power to designate entities to exercise their various powers. By tradition these are police or sheriff departments but there's nothing preventing the local government from vesting police powers in the 4-H club or Wal-mart.
That’s absolutely not the point of the police. Any power granted to the police is granted by the people they are changed with protecting. The police are not our overlords, they are our servants.
Power is local citizens banding together, grilling city council members about what equipment they will authorize the municipal police to use, and voting them out until the next councilor is one who will follow through on their election deal.
Starts at home.
When local departments get their acquisitions tightened down, then we start pressuring governors to turn the state police back into officers instead of National Guard reserve.
We're talking about them paying for military surplus like vehicles, machineguns and other items that 95% of departments don't need.
If the DoD weren't spreading surplus Army gear out like candy to babies who don't know how to use it, there would be a lot fewer opportunities for the not so stable elements of police departments to escalate otherwise normal situations just so they can play with big boy toys/get that "underfire" adrenaline hit again/get that power trip high that they craved from high school/soothe that sociopathic itch to dominate others.
We can put our voices together and force the DoD to stop this bullshit surplus program and acjnowledge that they built and bought too much and get egg on their faces as they destroy old gear and vehicles.
